Maya Bennardo - violin

Violinist Maya Bennardo is an active performer and teacher living in Brooklyn, NY. Maya is passionate about opening the dialogue between composers and performers, and is devoted to performing music of the present. She is a founding member of the violin/viola duo andPlay, described by I Care If You Listen as “enthusiastic champions for new music and collaboration.” She is a core member of Nouveau Classical Project and Hotel Elefant, and has performed with ensemble mise-en, Contemporaneous, Mimesis Ensemble, Ensemble Signal, and [Switch~ Ensemble]. Maya also performs new and traditional repertoire for violin and piano with pianist, Karl Larson, in their duo, Bennardo/Larson. 

Recent highlights include recording residencies at Electronic Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, NY and at the Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) in Stockholm, Sweden with andPlay, performances on Lincoln Center Festival, Bang on a Can Marathon, Sound of Stockholm festival (Sweden), Omaha Under the Radar, String Theories, KROCH festival (Sweden), and the premiere of a new work for solo speaking violinist by Jesse Diener-Bennett. Maya was a fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival at Mass MoCa 2014/15, a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra in 2014, and a participant in the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik 2016.

Maya also enjoys a rich teaching life, and is on faculty at the Brooklyn Waldorf School and teaches in her private studio. She graduated from NYU with a Master of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music. She studied with Gregory Fulkerson at both institutions.